University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

“If you're ralely ripe for a fight, Roaring
Ralph,” cried Tom Bruce the younger, who had
shown, like the others, a greater disposition to jest
than to do battle with the champion, “here comes
the very man for you. Look, boys, thar comes
Bloody Nathan!” At which formidable name
there was a loud shout set up, with an infinite
deal of laughing and clapping of hands.

“Whar's the feller?” cried Captain Stackpole,
springing six feet into the air, and uttering a
whoop of anticipated triumph. “I've heerd of
the brute, and, 'tarnal death to me, but I'm his
super-superior! Show me the crittur, and let me
fly! Cock-a-doodle-doo!”

“Hurrah for Roaring Ralph Stackpole!” cried
the young men, some of whom proceeded to pat
him on the back in compliment to his courage,
while others ran forward to hasten the approach
of the expected antagonist.

The appearance of the comer, at a distance,
promised an equal match to the captain of horse-thieves;
but Roland perceived, from the increase
of merriment among the Kentuckians, and especially
from his host joining heartily in it, that there
was more in Bloody Nathan than met the eye.
And yet there was enough in his appearance to
attract attention, and to convince the soldier that
if Kentucky had shown him, in Captain Stackpole,
one extraordinary specimen of her inhabitants,
she had others to exhibit not a whit less

remarkable. It is on the frontiers, indeed, where
adventurers from every corner of the world, and
from every circle of society, are thrown together,
that we behold the strongest contrasts, and the
strangest varieties, of human character.

Casting his eyes down the road or street, (for it
was flanked by the outer cabins of the settlement,
and perhaps deserved the latter name,) which led,
among stumps and gullies, from the gate of the
stockade to the bottom of the hill, Forrester beheld
a tall man approaching, leading an old lame
white horse, at the heels of which followed a little
silky-haired black or brown dog, dragging its tail
betwixt its legs, in compliment to the curs of the
Station, which seemed as hospitably inclined to
spread a field of battle for the submissive brute, as
their owners were to make ready another for its
master. The first thing that surprised the soldier
in the appearance of the person bearing so formidable
a name, was an incongruity which struck
others as well as himself, even the colonel of
militia exclaiming, as he pointed it out with his
finger, “It's old Nathan Slaughter, to the backbone!
Thar he comes, the brute, leading a horse
in his hand, and carrying his pack on his own
back! But he's a marciful man, old Nathan, and
the horse thar, old White Dobbin, war foundered
and good for nothing ever since the boys made a
race with him against Sammy Parker's jackass.”

As he approached yet nigher, Roland perceived
that his tall, gaunt figure was arrayed in garments
of leather from top to toe, even his cap, or hat,
(for such it seemed, having several broad flaps
suspended by strings, so as to serve the purpose of
a brim,) being composed of fragments of tanned
skins rudely sewed together. His upper garment
differed from a hunting-shirt only in wanting the

fringes usually appended to it, and in being fashioned
without any regard to the body it encompassed,
so that, in looseness and shapelessness, it looked
more like a sack than a human vestment; and,
like his breeches and leggings, it bore the marks
of the most reverend antiquity, being covered with
patches and stains of all ages, sizes, and colours.

Thus far Bloody Nathan's appearance was not
inconsistent with his name, being uncommonly
wild and savage; and to assist in maintaining his
claims to the title, he had a long rifle on his shoulder,
and a knife in his belt, both of which were in
a state of dilapidation worthy of his other equipments;
the knife, from long use and age, being
worn so thin that it seemed scarce worth the carrying,
while the rifle boasted a stock so rude,
shapeless, and, as one would have judged from its
magnitude and weight, so unserviceable, that it
was easy to believe it had been constructed by the
unskilful hands of Nathan himself. Such, then, was
the appearance of the man who seemed so properly
to be called the Bloody: but when Roland
came to survey him a little more closely, he could
not avoid suspecting that the sobriquet, instead of
being given to indicate warlike and dangerous
traits of character, had been bestowed out of pure
wantonness and derision. His visage, seeming to
belong to a man of at least forty-five or fifty years
of age, was hollow, and almost as weather-worn
as his apparel, with a long hooked nose, prominent
chin, a wide mouth exceedingly straight and
pinched, with a melancholy or contemplative
twist at the corners, and a pair of black staring
eyes that beamed a good-natured, humble, and
perhaps submissive, simplicity of disposition. His
gait, too, as he stumbled along up the hill, with a
shuffling, awkward, hesitating step, was more like

that of a man who apprehended injury and insult,
than of one who possessed the spirit to resist them.
The fact, moreover, of his sustaining on his own
shoulders a heavy pack of deer and other skins,
to relieve the miserable horse which he led, betokened
a merciful temper, scarce compatible with
the qualities of a man of war and contention.
Another test and criterion by which Roland judged
his claims to the character of a roarer, he found
in the little black dog; for the Virginian was a
devout believer, as we are ourselves, in that maxim
of practical philosophers,—namely, that by the
dog you shall know the master, the one being
fierce, magnanimous, and cowardly, just as his
master is a bully, a gentleman, or a dastard. The
little dog of Bloody Nathan was evidently a coward,
creeping along at white Dobbin's heels, and
seeming to supplicate with his tail, which now
draggled in the mud, and now attempted a timid
wag, that his fellow-curs of the Station should not
be rude and inhospitable to a peaceable stranger.

On the whole, the appearance of the man was
any thing in the world but that of the bulky and
ferocious ruffian whom the nickname had led Roland
to anticipate; and he scarce knew whether
to pity him, or to join in the laugh with which the
young men of the settlement greeted his approach.
Perhaps his sense of the ridiculous would have
disposed the young soldier to merriment; but the
wistful look, with which, while advancing, Nathan
seemed to deprecate the insults he evidently expected,
spoke volumes of reproach to his spirit,
and the half-formed smile faded from his countenance.

“Thar!” exclaimed Tom Bruce, slapping Stackpole
on the shoulder, with great glee, “thar's the
man that calls himself Dannger! At him, for the

honour of Salt River; but take care of his forelegs,
for, I tell you, he's the Pennsylvany war-horse!”

“And ar'n't I the ramping tiger of the Rolling
Fork?” cried Captain Ralph; “and can't I eat
him, hoss, dog, dirty jacket, and all? Hold me by
the tail, while I devour him!”

With that, he executed two or three escapades,
demivoltes, curvets, and other antics of a truly
equine character, and galloping up to the amazed
Nathan, saluted him with a neigh so shrill and
hostile that even White Dobbin pricked up his
ears, and betrayed other symptoms of alarm.

“Surely, Colonel,” said Roland, “you will not
allow that mad ruffian to assail the poor man?”

“Oh,” said Bruce, “Ralph won't hurt him; he's
never ambitious, except among Injuns and horses.
He's only for skearing the old feller.”

“And who!” said Forrester, “may the old fellow
be? and why do you call him Bloody Nathan?”

“We call him Bloody Nathan,” replied the
commander, “because he's the only man in all
Kentucky, that won't fight! and thar's the way he
beats us all hollow. Lord, Captain, you'd hardly
believe it, but he's nothing more than a poor
Pennsylvany Quaker; and what brought him out
to Kentucky, whar thar's nar another creatur' of
his tribe, thar's no knowing. Some say he war
dishonest, and so had to cut loose from Pennsylvany;
but I never heerd of his stealing any thing
in Kentucky: I reckon thar's too much of the
chicken about him for that. Some say he is
hunting rich lands; which war like enough for
any body that war not so poor and lazy. And
some say his wits are unsettled, and I hold that
that's the truth of the creatur'; for he does nothing

but go wandering up and down the country,
now h'yar and now thar, hunting for meat and
skins; and that's pretty much the way he makes a
living; and once I see'd the creatur' have a fit,—
a right up-and-down touch of the falling-sickness,
with his mouth all of a foam. Thar's them that's
good-natur'd, that calls him Wandering Nathan,
because of his being h'yar, and thar, and every
whar. He don't seem much afear'd of the Injuns;
but, they say, the red brutes never disturbs
the Pennsylvany Quakers. Howsomever, he
makes himself useful; for sometimes he finds Injun
sign whar thar's no Injuns thought of, and so
he gives information; but he always does it, as he
says, to save bloodshed, not to bring on a fight.
He comes to me once, thar's more than three
years ago, and instead of saying `Cunnel, thar's
twenty Injuns lying on the road at the lower ford
of Salt, whar you may nab them;' says he, says
he, `Friend Thomas; thee must keep the people
from going nigh the ford, for thar's Injuns thar
that will hurt them;' and then he takes himself off;
whilst I rides down thar with twenty-five men
and exterminates them, killing six, and driving
the others the Lord knows whar. He has had but
a hard time of it among us, poor creatur'; for it
used to make us wrathy to find thar war so little
fight in him, that he would'nt so much as kill a
murdering Injun. I took his gun from him once;
for why, he wouldn't attend muster, when I had
enrolled him. But I pitied the brute; for he war
poor, and thar war but little corn in his cabin,
and nothing to shoot meat with; and so I gave it
back, and told him to take his own ways for an
old fool.”

While Colonel Bruce was thus delineating the
character of Nathan Slaughter, the latter found

himself surrounded by the young men of the Station,
the butt of a thousand jests, and the victim of
the insolence of the captain of horse-thieves. It
is not to be supposed that Roaring Ralph was
really the bully and madman that his extravagant
freaks and expressions seemed to proclaim him.
These, like any other `actions that a man might
play,' were assumed, partly because it suited his
humour to be fantastic, and partly because the
putting of his antic disposition on, was the only
means which he, like many of his betters, possessed
of attracting attention, and avoiding the
neglect and contempt to which his low habits and
appearance would have otherwise justly consigned
him. There was, therefore, little really hostile in
the feelings with which he approached the noncombatant;
though it was more than probable,
the disgust he, in common with the other warlike
personages, entertained toward the peaceable Nathan,
might have rendered him a little more malicious
than usual.

“Bloody Nathan!” said he, as soon as he had
concluded his neighing and curvetting, “if you
ever said your prayers, now's the time. Down
with your pack,—for I can't stand deer's ha'r
sticking in my swallow, no how!”

“Friend,” said Blooody Nathan, meekly, “I beg
thee will not disturb me. I am a man of peace
and quiet.”

And so saying, he endeavoured to pass onwards,
but was prevented by Ralph, who seizing his
heavy bundle with one hand, applied his right foot
to it with a dexterity that not only removed it from
the poor man's back, but sent the dried skins scatering
over the road. This feat was rewarded by
the spectators with loud shouts, all which, as well

as the insult itself, Nathan bore with exemplary
patience.

“Friend,” he said, “what does thee seek of me,
that thee treats me thus?”

“A fight!” replied Captain Stackpole, uttering
a war-whoop; “a fight, strannger, for the love of
heaven!”

“Thee seeks it of the wrong person,” said Nathan;
“and I beg thee will get thee away.”

“What!” said Stackpole, “ar'nt thee the Pennsylvanny
war-horse, the screamer of the meeting-house,
the bloody-mouthed b'ar of Yea-Nay-and-Verily?”

“I am a man of peace,” said the submissive
Slaughter.

“Yea verily, verily and yea!” cried Ralph, snuffling
through the nostrils, but assuming an air of
extreme indignation; “Strannger, I've heerd of
you! You're the man that holds it agin duty and
conscience to kill Injuns, the red-skin screamers,—
that refuses to defend the women, the splendiferous
creatur's! and the little children, the squall-a-baby
d'ars! And wharfo'? Bec'ause as how you're
a man of peace and no fight, you superiferous,
long-legged, no-souled, crittur! But I'm the gentleman
to make a man of you. So down with
your gun, and 'tarnal death to me, I'll whip the
cowardly devil out of you.”

“Friend,” said Nathan, his humility yielding to
a feeling of contempt, “thee is theeself a cowardly
person, or thee would n't seek a quarrel
with one, thee knows, can't fight thee. Thee would
not be so ready with thee match.”

With that, he stooped to gather up his skins, a
proceeding that Stackpole, against whom the
laugh was turned by this sally of Nathan's, resisted
by catching him by the nape of the neck,

twirling him round, and inaking as if he really
would have beaten him.

Even this the peaceful Nathan bore without
anger or murmuring; but his patience fled, when
Stackpole, turning to the little dog, which by
bristling its back and growling, expressed a half
inclination to take up its master's quarrel, applied
his foot to its ribs with a violence that sent it
rolling some five or six yards down the hill, where
it lay for a time yelping and whining with pain.

“Friend!” said Nathan, sternly, “thee is but a
dog theeself, to harm the creature! What will
thee have with me?”

“A fight! a fight, I tell thee!” replied Captain
Ralph, “till I teach thy leatherified conscience
the new doctrines of Kentucky.”

“Fight thee I cannot and dare not,” said Nathan;
and then added, much to the surprise of
Forrester, who, sharing his indignation at the
brutality of his tormentor; had approached to
drive the fellow off,—“But if thee must have
thee deserts, thee shall have them.—Thee prides
theeself upon thee courage and strength—will thee
adventure with me a friendly fall?”

“Hurrah for Bloody Nathan!” cried the young
men, vastly delighted at his unwonted spirit, while
Captain Ralph himself expressed his pleasure, by
leaping into the air, crowing, and dashing off his
hat, which he kicked down the hill with as much
good will as he had previously bestowed upon the
little dog.

“Off with your leather night-cap, and down
with your rifle,” he cried, giving his own weapon
into the hands of a looker-on, “and serape some
of the grease off your jacket; for, 'tarnal death
to me, I shall give you the Virginny lock, fling
you head-fo'most, and you'll find yourself, in a

twinkling, sticking fast right in the centre of the
'arth!”

“Thee may find theeself mistaken,” said Nathan,
giving up his gun to one of the young men,
but instead of rejecting his hat, pulling it down
tight over his brows. “There is locks taught
among the mountains of Bedford that may be as
good as them learned on the hills of Virginia.—I
am ready for thee.”

“Cock-a-doodle-doo!” cried Ralph Stackpole,
springing towards his man, and clapping his
hands, one on Nathan's left shoulder, the other on
his right hip: “Are you ready?”

“I am,” replied Nathan.

“Down then, you go, war you a buffalo!”
And with that the captain of horse-thieves put
forth his strength, which was very great, in an
effort that appeared to Roland quite irresistible;
though, as it happened, it scarce moved Nathan
from his position.

“Thee is mistaken, friend!” he cried, exerting
his strength in return, and with an effect that no
one had anticipated. By magic, as it seemed, the
heels of the captain of horse-thieves were suddenly
seen flying in the air, his head aiming at
the earth, upon which it as suddenly descended
with the violence of a bomb-shell; and there it
would doubtless have burrowed, like the aforesaid
implement of destruction, had the soil been
soft enough for the purpose, or exploded into a
thousand fragments, had not the shell been double
the thickness of an ordinary skull.

“Huzza! Bloody Nathan for ever!” shouted
the delighted villagers.

“He has killed the man,” said Forrester; “but
bear witness, all, the fellow provoked his fate.”

“Thanks to you, strannger! but not so dead as

you reckon,” said Ralph, rising to his feet, and
scratching his poll, with a stare of comical confusion.
“I say, strannger, here's my shoulders,—
but whar's my head?—Do you reckon I had the
worst of it?”

“Huzza for Bloody Nathan Slaughter! He has
whipped the ramping tiger of Salt River;” cried
the young men of the station.

“Well, I reckon he has,” said the magnanimous
Captain Ralph, picking up his hat: then walking
up to Nathan, who had taken his dog into his
arms, to examine into the little animal's hurts, he
cried, with much good-humoured energy,—“Thar's
my fo'-paw, in token I've had enough of you, and
want no mo'. But I say, Nathan Slaughter,” he
added, as he grasped the victor's hand, “it's no
thing you can boast of, to be the strongest man in
Kentucky, and the most sevagarous at a tussel,—
h'yar among murdering Injuns and scalping runnegades,
and keep your fists off their top-knots.
Thar's my idear: for I go for the doctrine, that
every able-bodied man should sarve his country
and his neighbours, and fight their foes; and them
that does is men and gentlemen, and them that
don't is cowards and rascals, that's my idear.
And so, fawwell.”

Then, executing another demivolte or two, but
with much less spirit than he had previously displayed,
he returned to Colonel Bruce, saying,
“Whar's that horse you promised me, cunnel?
I'm a licked man, and I can't stay here no longer,
no way no how. Lend me a hoss, cunnel, and
trust to my honour.”

“You shall have a beast,” said Bruce, coolly;
“but as to trusting your honour, I shall do no such
thing, having something much better to rely on.
Tom will show you a horse; and, remember, you

are to leave him at Logan's. If you carry him a
step further, captain, you'll never carry another.
Judge Lynch is looking at you; and so bewar'.”

Having uttered this hint, he left the captain of
horse-thieves to digest it as he might, and stepped
up to Nathan, who had seated himself on a stump,
where, with his skins at his side, his little dog and
his rifle betwixt his legs, he sat enduring a thousand
sarcastic encomiums on his strength and
spirit, with as many sharp denunciations of the
peaceful principles that robbed the community of
the services he had shown himself so well able to
render. The doctrine, so eloquently avowed by
Captain Ralph, that it was incumbent upon every
able-bodied man to fight the enemies of their little
state, the murderers of their wives and children,
was a canon of belief imprinted on the heart of
every man in the district; and Nathan's failure to
do so, however caused by his conscientious aversion
to bloodshed, no more excused him from contempt
and persecution in the wilderness, than it
did others of his persuasion in the Eastern republics,
during the war of the revolution. His appearance,
accordingly, at any Station, was usually
the signal for reproach and abuse; the fear of
which had driven him almost altogether from the
society of his fellow-men, so that he was seldom
seen among them, except when impelled by necessity,
or when his wanderings in the woods had
acquainted him with the proximity of the foes of
his persecutors. His victory over the captain of
horse-thieves exposed him, on this occasion, to
ruder and angrier remonstrances than usual;
which having sought in vain to avert, he sat down
in despair, enduring all in silence, staring from
one to another of his tormentors with lack-lustre
eyes, and playing with the silken hair of his dog.

The approach of the captain of the Station procured
him an interval of peace, which he, however,
employed only to communicate his troubles
to the little cur, that, in his perplexity, he addressed
pretty much as he would have addressed a
human friend and adviser: “Well, Peter,” said
he, abstractedly, and with a heavy sigh, “what
does thee think of matters and things?” To which
question, the ridiculousness of which somewhat
mollified the anger of the young men, Peter replied
by rubbing his nose against his master's
hand, and by walking a step or two down the hill,
as if advising an instant retreat from the inhospitable
Station.

“Ay, Peter,” muttered Nathan, “the sooner we
go the better; for there are none that makes us
welcome. But nevertheless, Peter, we must have
our lead and our powder; and we must tell these
poor people the news.”

“And pray, Nathan,” said Colonel Bruce, rousing
him from his meditations, “what may your
news for the poor people be? I reckon it will be
much wiser to tell it to me than that 'ar brute
dog. You have seen the Jibbenainosay, perhaps,
or his mark thar-away on the Kentucky?”

“Nay,” said Nathan. “But there is news from
the Injun towns of a great gathering of Injuns
with their men of war in the Miami villages, who
design, the evil creatures, marching into the district
of Kentucky with a greater army than was
ever seen in the land before.”

“Let them come, the brutes,” said the Kentuckian,
with a laugh of scorn; “it will save us
the trouble of hunting them up in their own
towns.”

“Nay,” said Nathan: “but perhaps they have
come; for the prisoner who escaped, and who is

bearing the news to friend Clark, the General at
the Falls, says they were to march two days after
he fled from them.”

“And whar did you learn this precious news?”

“At the lower ford of Kentucky, and from the
man himself,” said Nathan. “He had warned the
settlers at Lexington—”

“That's piper's news,” interrupted one of the
young men. “Captain Ralph told us all about
that; but he said thar war nobody at Lexington
believed the story.”

“Then,” said Nathan, meekly, “it may be that
the man was mistaken. Yet persons should have
a care, for there is Injun sign all along the Kentucky.
But that is my story. And now, friend
Thomas, if thee will give me lead and powder for
my skins, I will be gone, and trouble thee no
longer.”

“It's a sin and a shame to waste them on a,
man who only employs them to kill deer, b'ar,
and turkey,” said Bruce; “yet a man must n't
starve, even whar he's a quaker. So go you
along with my son Dick thar, to the store, and
he'll give you the value of your plunder.—A poor,
miserable brute, thar's no denying,” he continued,
contemptuously, as Nathan, obeying the direction,
followed Bruce's second son into the fortress.
“The man has some spirit now and then; but
whar's the use of it, while he's nothing but a no-fight
quaker? I tried to reason him out of his
notions; but thar war no use in trying, no how I
could work it. I have an idea about these quakers—”

But here, luckily, the worthy Colonel's idea was
suddenly put to flight by the appearance of Telie
Doe, who came stealing through the throng, to
summon him to his evening meal,—a call which

neither he nor his guest was indisposed to obey;
and taking Telie by the hand in a paternal manner,
he ushered the young soldier back into the
fort.

The girl, Roland observed, had changed her
attire at the bidding of her protector, and now,
though dressed with the greatest simplicity, appeared
to more advantage than before. He
thought her, indeed, quite handsome, and pitying
her more than orphan condition, he endeavoured
to show her such kindness as was in his power,
by addressing to her some complimentary remarks,
as he walked along at her side. His
words, however, only revived the terror she seemed
really to experience, whenever any one accosted
her; seeing which, he desisted, doubting if
she deserved the compliment the benevolent Bruce
had so recently paid to her good sense.